XVI Legion Moritat for Horus Heresy

"Moritat" in the colours of the XVI Legion Astrates - the Sons of Horus.

Having gone through some Adeptus Titanicus projects in recent weeks, my hobby attentions have turned to related areas of hobby interest - namely, the Horus Heresy in 28mm. This is a 28mm Space Marine "Moritat", painted in the colours of the XVIth Legion Astrates, the "Sons of Horus", the Warmaster's very own Legion.

Guns drawn, ready to fire...and the helmet of a previous victim lying on the base...

So what is a "Moritat"? Well, the "Horus Heresy" was a giant civil war which tore the Imperium apart. Space Marine Legions fought against Space Marine Legions, and the fighting caused the odd Space Marine here and there to crack up a bit, the nature of the conflict being such that it wrecked the careful mental/psychological conditioning/programming that was part of their creation. While still physically fit, such mentally damaged Marines could no longer be fully relied upon to fight effectively as part of their units, and so were pulled from the battle line. The Legions would never "waste" an asset, however - a Space Marine is still a Space Marine...and so such mentally fractured Marines are made in "Moritats", and sent to battle as one-man armies. Not suicide missions per se...just loners at the fringe of the battle plan. If they survive, great. If not...well, they will still have cause serious issues for the enemies of the Legion.

The cabling is a pain the @ss...some crude "green stuff" repairs were needed - I've got no skill using "green stuff", but you have to start somewhere? Practice is practice.

The Moritat seen here wears Mark IV power armour, with extra plating. He is equipped with a jump pack to get close to the enemy as fast as he can and start shooting. He is equipped with volkite weapons that are pretty deadly at short range, and has a variety of extra targeting kit to help his shots land more accurately.

Putting a Space Marine together is usually pretty straightforward, but there was a particular challenge with this figure - the cables running from the weapons to the backpack of the armour. Powered weapons with cables connected to some manner of backpack on the power armour are a feature of a number of the special weapon/heavy weapon figures in Forge World's Horus Heresy range. Resin features like this are not easy to assemble, and even with careful use of hot water etc. the cables can break because one carefully tries to bend/turn them into position before gluing them into place. I am envious of how Mike, Dallas, Byron and others manage to work well on these sorts of tricky figures. With this figure, one cable worked out fine, but the other broke in two places, and "green stuff" was needed...I'm not very confident using that either, but I managed to bodge it together.

For the Warmaster!

It has been a while since I last painted some 30k figures (last November, it seems), so it was fun to dig into the packing crate and pull out some figures like this one. This figure has been waiting for paint for just over a year - first assembled it during a previous burst of 30k output in the spring last year. When I pulled this figure out, there were a few other 30k items in the tray as well, so I'm hoping to share those soon.

Thanks for reading everyone - hope you are well! My thoughts in particular are with my friends back in Manitoba as the COVID pandemic continues to wreak particular havoc there.